I was cursed with a certain curiosity that prevents me from turning down another man in conversation, as a result of this, I have spent much of my time in twisted conversation with those drunken, schizophrenic, homeless, soothsaying, telepathic, friendless and on the verge of death. I would like to tell stories, but there are too many and I would not know which to choose: I have been warned by teary eyed men who wanted nothing from me but to please, please leave this place and make it east of the Rockies before September because a great tsunami would soon envelope the entire western half of the north American continent; I have been seduced by bejeweled and long bearded dark yogis on the banks of the Ganges who told me that If I would train with them for ten days my power would be so great that I could shatter any mirror by staring into the glass; I have dined with intellectual crack smoking prophets who casually, between bites make remarks such as: "While I am aware that smoking cocaine can cause someone to become paranoid, it can also raise an individuals awareness, causing him to notice things that the average person would ignore" and "Now because I am a black man, and you are a white man, this already brings a certain amount of attention to us--the police wonder why we are sitting together, and I have observed that they are already watching us" and "Within the last five minutes I have noticed that there is a small red light right up there in the window, that turned on moments after we became seated, I also noticed a nondescript black van drive by, and by the figures on the license plate I am certain that it is the same van I had seen twice, earlier this afternoon, in two separate locations…( And then, in a philosophical tone, as if he were proposing some unsolvable paradox ) "Now is this where the paranoia sets in? am I being paranoid or merely observant?"; I have heard tales told by so many so close to ultimate fame and wealth, who, with a bad turn of luck, lost it all and landed a life of alcoholism and vagrancy, men who were nearly stars in the eighties, reciting to me their strange, ancient rhymes, narrating tales of themselves reviving friends wounded by police gunfire by mixing a pint of their own blood with malt liquor and forcing it down the throats of the afflicted, or gospel songs of angelic purity, who's melodies all but wipe clean any semblance of corruption, til the moment they stop singing and wipe their wet lips, rolling their eyes down from the heavens and beadily back into mine, searching for secular payment; I am studied in all shelter house folklore, I know of the midnight abductions, the men in dark suits and the chemical experiments, the secret government poison administered to tramps across the country and the tracking devices found on the inside of moldy cuffs and lapels; I have been blessed by so many saints full of rotting teeth and lost limbs that I by now must certainly be on the top of Gods list; I have been advised with so many instructions by so many alleyway oracles that I now cannot cut my hair or keep shoes under my bed or bathe without first sprinkling the water with rose-petals, I now know that I am unsatisfied only because hundreds of years ago I was a prince, who's father out of jealousy killed both my lover and I, decapitating his own self and placing his head on top of my grave to ensure that the curse would follow me throughout all of eternity; I know all tales of the teary eyed and toothless, the bloodshot and bleary, all woes of the wandering and worthless have been revealed to me, and throughout the years these very men and women have proven to serve as my benefactors, guardians, friends and above all, my advisers on the subject of Armageddon.
And now I sit, idle in the park in exactly the way that all of my teachers have always taught me, and I can hear now their drunken bearded whispers, I can feel my veins drinking their secret government poison, I am no longer alone for I can feel all of them here with me--hundreds of rotten men burrowed beneath my coat, huddled against my chest to hide from the cold--I see religious visions of the final and complete destruction of the earth, I can smell sulfur and salt in the air as the horizon swells, spills over and drinks the world. I see on days like this the moon red, the sun black, all the seas turn to blood as all of them said they always would. And I wonder now, before the very end, if I shouldn't have chosen a different path, a path carved not by the aimless footsteps of lost men, but no, I regret nothing, fear nothing for I know that my redeemer will soon come, and standing now on the parks peripheral, a wooded patch before me, I am relived, for I had always known that I would one day wander to the woods and die like a dog.
Ah! But I should be so lucky! I wake again to find myself having only dozed briefly on the grass, and I am still a young man, and now, as the sun sets and air becomes cold I rouse to return to my own home, I cannot fool my fate, for I am a young man with a home, and the cleansing fires of the apocalypse bring salvation only to those who have earned it by scratching lice and fleas and begging, by sleeping under bridges and remaining celibate for countless decades, only those who have renounced all pleasantries of life shall be permitted past the gates of the invisible end which soothes all worry. Oh, how all of us have prayed dearly for the end to come, rendering all things of this world finally and utterly pointless, affirming at last our morbid suspicions… but no, this dark paradise exists not for us, those with still a hope left for some vapid, worldly gain will not be permitted a glimpse of the glorious end. All of us must wait, until we too, are bearded and toothless and loveless and only then, will we be rewarded with the divine bliss of beggars, only then will we see all things once cared for fall flaccid in the face of infinity.*
*Just kidding, I'm just kidding. If I pray for the end of the world, it's only because I'm lazy.
